Garment pad to correct low shoulders



May 8, 1956 s. DREscHER ETAL GARMENT PAD To CORRECT Low sHouLDERsY Filed Jan. 15, 1953 INVENToRs Harry .Erger TTRNE Y United States Patent O GARMENT PAD TO CORRECT LOW SHOULDERS Sol Drescher, Hewlett Harbor, and Harry Bryer, New York, N. Y.

Application January 15, 1953, Serial No. 331,377

1 Claim. (Cl. 2-93) This invention relates to garments and particularly to a pad used to improve the fit of ready-made jackets or coats.

Most persons have one shoulder lower than the other requiring ready-made garments to be altered to tit the individual customer. The effect of the low shoulder is to cause the material of the garment to bunch up and wrinkle either in the front or the back of the garment or in both the front and back on vthe lower shoulder side.

Alterations constitute one of the largest single items of expense for retail clothing merchants and also often cause undesirable delays in the delivery of the altered garment to the purchaser. The alterations now required to t a low shoulder are especially expensive and timeconsuming due to the complexity of the operation. It is present practice to t the low shoulder by re-cutting and re-shaping the shoulder or by placing thick padding above the normal shoulder padding to raise the garment. Both of these methods are expensive and time-consuming and require the services of a skilled tailor. In addition, the method of adding extra shoulder padding is undesirable, since it results in a bunching elect at the shoulder and leaves a shoulder which may be easily misshapen by Wear or during cleaning and pressing.

The present invention accomplishes the necessary alteration by using a pad which is easily and quickly inserted in the coat by inexperienced' personnel. This allows the retail merchant to lit coats and jackets more inexpensively and more rapidly and to thus give the customer better service and to increase his sales.

The pad is furnished to the retail clothing merchant complete and ready to be slipped into the coat or jacket. The merchant merely trims the pad to the shape required for a particular tit and then stitches it inside the coat lining, as will be more fully described hereafter.

The pad is thin and elastic and will not bunch or crease. lt requires only a few minutes work by inexperienced personnel to it a garment for a person having one shoulder as much as half an inch lower than the other. Since the pad has a large area and is relatively thin, the altered garment will be made to tit without any bulky padding effect being created, as occurs where the shoulder pad itself has been appreciably thickened to raise a low shoulder. I

These pads are inexpensive to manufacture and the time saved by using the pad will be worth many times the cost of the pad to the merchant.

An object of the invention is to provide an inexpensive and simple way of fitting the shoulders of a garment using an alteration pad.

Another object of the invention is to provide a lightweight pad for use in the alteration of garments which is creaseless and elastic in all directions.

Another object of the invention is to provide a pad for the fitting of garments for low shoulders which will be simple to use, so that the fitting may be done by inexperienced personnel.

Another object of the invention is to provide a thin without adding to the bulk of the original shoulder pad ding.

Another object of the invention is to provide an alteration pad with a stilening layer which does not use stiff individual fibers or hairs.

Otherand further objects of the invention will be obvious upon an understanding of the illustrative embodiment about to be described, or will be indicated in the appended claim, and various advantages not referred to herein will occur to one skilled in the art upon employment of the invention in practice.

A preferred embodiment of the invention has been chosen for purposes of illustration and description and is shown in the accompanying drawings, forming a part of the specification, wherein:

Fig. l is a plan view of the pad;

Fig. 2 is a sectional View on the line 2 2 of Fig. l;

Fig. 3 is a rear View of a coat before the insertion of an alteration pad;

Fig. 4 is a rear view of a coat with an alteration pad inserted in the lining yoke;

Fig. 5 is a front View of a coat opened up to show the position of a pad inserted in the front lining; and

Fig. 6 is a front View of a coat opened up to show the position of a pad inserted in the yoke or back lining.

Referring to the drawings, Fig. l shows a pad 1 which is designed for insertion in the coat linings. The pad is of inexpensive construction andas shown in Fig. 2 consists of three layers. The two outer layers 2 and 4 are made of a soft padding material, such as cotton Wadding, and the center layer 3 is a stiffening layer.

- The stiifening layer is preferably made of a resilient,

lthe garment is tightly folded across the pad.

creaseless, isoelastic and shrinkproof unwoven textile such as Pellon, which is manufactured by the Pellon Corporation, of New York city. A material such as this provides a pad which will t snugly against the lining of the garment and which will at the same time conform to the shape of the garment. It will also provide a pad which will not retain any creases even though It also provides a pad which is isoelastic or which, in other words, resumes its original shape and size no matter in what direction it is stretched. This is due to the fact that the properties of an unwoven textile are nondirectional. Also, being isoelastic, the material may be cut in any direction so that the pad may be trimmed to any shape required for a particular garment. Woven stiifeners such as hair cloth, which are commonly used in garments, have resiliency in only one direction. When stressed in other directions, the hair cloth will be permanently stretched out of shape.

The layers of the pad are fastened together in any convenient manner such as by a thread 5, as shown in Figs. l and 2. Fig. l shows a zig-zag pattern of stitching but any convenient one may be used, or the layers may be glued together or clipped with small rust-proof staples or otherwise fastened together. The number of layers of material used may also be varied since the stitiening layer or the padding layers or both may be laminated, or the pad could be made with only two layers consisting of a stiifening layer and a padding layer.

Fig. 3 shows the characteristic wrinkles in the back of a coat caused by the excess material resulting when a person with a low shoulder wears a ready-made coat. Similar wrinkles may also occur in the front of the coat. Removal of these wrinkles is one of the more serious alteration problems confronting the retail clothing merchant. In place of re-cutting and re-building the whole coat shoulder or of placing a small thick pad at the shoulder seam 13, the pad 1 is inserted in the garment as shown in Fig. 4. This pad fits the low shoulder and removes the wrinkles by raising the shoulder slightly but more importantly by providing a thin ller pad over the large area 6", 7, 3" and 9".

Fig.y 6 shows. a front` view oi a; coatv with the pad 1 inserted as inA Fig..4 to remove the wrinklesll from the back of the coat. A typical lining member or yoke 12, now being` commonly used,` is shown fitted in the coat back below collar 14; This yoke is made of two layers of cloth with a pocket-like space between layers, and extends as shownin Figs. 5 and 6 from the collar 14 around the arm hole 16 to the side seam 15. The pad 1 is inserted into the pocket of yoke 12by opening one of its edge seams and slipping the pad between the two layers of the yoke. The pad is rst trimmed to t the yoke pocket and then as much more as necessary to provide the proper padareato remove the creases 11. The pad will then have the shape shown in Fig. 6 with edges 6, 7", 8 and 9". After the yoke edge seam has been re-fastened, the pad 1 isstitched at several points to the yoke to hold it in place. The pad is preferably placed as shown in Fig. 6 with the edge 6" approximately an inch beyond the shoulder seam 13. Edge 8" follows around the edge of arm hole 16 to side seam 15. Edge 9 is fastened near side seam 15, and edge 7" is tted along the inner edge of yoke 12.

Fig. 5 shows a front view of a coat with the pad 1 inserted behind the front lining to remove wrinkles in the front of the coat. A typical coat front is either fully lined or lined from the collar 14 to a point below the arm hole 16. In either case, the pad 1 may be slipped behind the lining andlocated as is indicated in Fig. 5. The edge 6 is placed approximately an inch beyond the shoulder seam 13. The edge 8 is trimmed to follow the front edge of arm hole 16 and the edge 9 is cut to fit near side seam 15. Edge 7 is cut to fit behind the liningand may be further trimmed to provide the desired pad area for the particular alteration required. After insertion, the pad is stitched at several points to the lining to keep it in place.

The pad may be usedV in a variety of garments such as mens or womens suits or topcoats. Where the rear lining is not made in the form of a yoke as shown at 12 in Fig. 6 but is a single-thickness half or full length lining, the pad may be shaped as desired and slipped behind the lining and stitched as is donewhen the pad is used with a front lining, as in Fig. 5.

It will be seen that an improved alteration pad has been provided which can be used to make ready-made garments t the individual purchaser. Use of this pad provides a simple, rapid and inexpensive way to make the necessary alterations of garments required by the variations in the garment buyers figure, such as low shoulders.

The pad may be inserted by inexperienced personnel at the retail merchants store. This will materially simplify the alteration problems of the merchant and will allow him to provide a less expensive and more rapid alteration service. The pad itself, being relatively thin and being both creaseless and elastic, will resist bunching and will remain inconspicuous no matter how the garment is hung or folded.

As various changesrnay be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the partsherein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention and without sacrificing any of its advantages, it is to be understood that all matter herein is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described our invention, we claim:

A dat elongated alteration pad of substantially uniform thickness having one longitudinal edge concavely curved and the other longitudinal edge convexly curved, said longitudinal edges being connected at one end by a substantially straight transverse edge extending at substantially right angles to the longitudinal edges, the other ends of the curved edges being connected by a secondA end edge which extends at substantially right angles to the direction of the iirst mentioned end edge, the first mentioned end edge being adapted to be fitted into the shoulder seam of a garment, the concavely curved edge being adapted to be iitted into the rear seam of the sleeve, and the second named end edge being adapted to be tted into the-side seam below the sleeve opening of the gar ment, said pad comprising an inner stiffening layer and two outer layers stitched together in substantially parallel relationship to each other, said inner layer being relatively thin and being formed from a substantially creaseless, shrinkproof, grainless, unwoven fibrous textile fabric which is resilient in all directions, said outer layers being formed of a soft padding material thicker than the said inner layer, and the width and length of said pad being many times the thickness of said pad, whereby it may cover a large surface area of a garment without adding appreciably to the garment thickness.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 349,274 Graser e Sept. 14, 1886 374,120 Eastman Nov. 29, 1887 1,123,224 Bernard Jan. 5, 1915 1,604,366 Oliverio Oct. 26, 1936 2,068,644 Frais Ian. 26, 1937 2,392,136 Felick Jan. 1, 1946 2,440,368 Danilin Apr. 27, 1948 

